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Now everyone's a gambler

Sport has always been addicted: now the nation is too, says Michael Atherton

Last week people kept asking me the same three things: “Did Pakistan cheat?”; “Was Inzamam-ul-Haq right to take his team off?”; “Is cricket corrupt?”

All I can say is that if Pakistan were ball tampering during last Sunday’s Test match against England, at least they were doing it to try and win a game. Like me, you might recall a time not so long ago when they played in quite a few contests which they were accused of throwing on purpose.

Just as with every other sport, gambling infected cricket. Our crises (which came to a head with the Hansie Cronje match-fixing scandal of 2000) have resulted in players being forbidden to bet on all professional matches and mobile phones being banned from the dressing rooms.

Nevertheless, this has still been a bumper summer for dodgy gambling in other sports, be it the match-fixing fiasco in Italian football or UK